The invasion of Venezuela is a perfect example of this kind of warfare, which has also been termed Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW) by military experts. According to Professor Armin Krishnan in his book
Fifth Generation Warfare: Dominating the Human Domain, 5GW is the latest, most secretive, and difficult to understand form of war. Daniel Abbot’s
Handbook of 5GW defines it as “an emerging theory of warfare premised upon manipulation of multiple economic, political, social and military forces in multiple domains.” This manipulation involves the oversight of all fighting domains — land, air, maritime, space, cyber, and cognitive — through what is termed a “common operating picture.” This unified view is made possible by Pentagon projects including Project Maven (which pioneered AI targeting), Joint All-Domain Command and Control (or JADC2, which connects sensors from across the armed forces) and software built by Palantir.
We can see in the invasion of Venezuela some hallmarks of 5GW, as offered by Krishnan:
- Fifth generation warfare bypasses the battlefield and targets society as a whole, rather than its military forces.
- Violence in 5GW is very dispersed or hidden, which makes it difficult to perceive as war.
- Fifth generation warfare relies on covert or ambiguous means that hide nefarious activities or disguise them as benign or harmless.
- The objective of 5GW is to overthrow an existing political order or change the culture in a society in accordance with the goals of the aggressor.
According to Krishnan, 5GW “shifts the emphasis from the control of physical terrain to the control of the human terrain and the human mind as a target of attack.”
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